Australian prime minister Tony Abbott refers to the missing MH370 as an "unfathomed
mystery" as he updates the Australian parliament on the search and
rescue effort

9:00AM GMT 17 Mar 2014

The Australian prime minister said his country would take responsibility for searching a large part of the Indian Ocean in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370, which he referred to as an "unfathomed mystery".

Addressing the Australian parliament, Tony Abbott said he had agreed the details in a conversation with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak earlier on Monday.

"He (Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak) asked that Australia take responsibility for the search in the southern vector... I agreed that we would do so," Abbott said.

He added that he also offered "additional maritime surveillance resources" to Malaysia during the conversation.

Australia already has had two AP-3C Orion aircraft involved in the search, one of them looking north and west of the remote Cocos Islands.